Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, this amendment is based on the bipartisan Metropolitan Planning Enhancement Act that rebuilds public trust by promoting evidence-based decision making in the transportation investment process. This commonsense amendment helps States and metropolitan planning organizations offer the highest return for taxpayers and commuters through increased transparency and improved accountability.

Americans of all types are suspicious of government right now. In the context of transportation funding, many Americans believe that highway and bridge project decisions are based on politics and insider connections rather than statewide and regional transportation goals.

In many areas of the country, local commuters have little idea how State Departments of Transportation and MPOs make their project decisions or why they choose one project over another; yet, every year, lawmakers ask taxpayers to spend more and more of their hard-earned dollars on infrastructure projects with minimal transparency and accountability.

This amendment requires State and regional transportation plans to include project descriptions and to score projects based on criteria developed by the State or the region, not the Federal Government.

Requiring that projects be assessed with objective criteria ensures that limited transportation resources are invested in projects that provide the highest return on investment to commuters. Furthermore, requiring transportation decision makers to communicate how projects are chosen enhances the public's understanding of and confidence in the project selection process.

Many States and MPOs are incorporating project priority criteria today: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Washington State, Minnesota, Massachusetts, amongst others. There is plenty of early evidence that this has increased confidence within the commuting public.

Effective and efficient transportation systems are critical to our growing and prosperous U.S. economy. We cannot allow diminishing resources to be directed toward bad investments. This amendment ensures that the public has more complete information to judge the merits of projects for themselves.

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Mr. Chairman, we are here today discussing how to meet the country's important infrastructure needs, and I think what my amendment does is offer a vision for a different approach in the future. I think it is an approach that is more accountable to taxpayers, and I think it rests on governments closer to the people making more of our transportation decisions.

I don't think anyone is going to sit here and claim that the transit and highway system as it is done up here in Washington is being done well. It is chronically underfunded. We are using all kinds of budget gimmicks in this bill. We are doing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve again to, quote, unquote, pay for this. Somehow you are taking oil at $50 a barrel and you are projecting it to be sold for $85 a barrel. So we know we have been through this a lot here.

I think part of the problem is, if you look at our infrastructure needs, most of them are intrastate, not necessarily interstate. And while the interstate system is very important and it needs to be maintained, expanded where appropriate, most of the needs that we have in a State like Florida can be done at the county level or at the State level.

I would note, Mr. Chairman, that since we have had the highway trust fund since 1956, Florida has paid a lot in taxes, and we received about 88 cents on the dollar back. So I am trying to figure out why we would want to perpetuate a system that is not fiscally sustainable and that puts more power in Washington.

Think about it. Most of your needs are done countywide, citywide, and statewide, and yet people in a State like Florida will pay their gas taxes. That will be shipped up to Washington; people will fight over it, politicians, lobbyists, and interest groups; and then the money that comes back is 88 cents on the dollar.

I would like to send the gas tax to Washington that is going to fund the actual interstate system, but then leave a portion of the gas tax for State legislatures to spend or for people in local governments to spend. I think you would be able to do it cheaper. I think it would be more accountable to the taxpayers, and I think it would be better for motorists and people who are using our transportation system.

So all this does, Mr. Chairman, it is not binding. I wish we could have done something binding, but there are different budget rules. What it does is lay out a vision that we can do this in a way that rests on decisions being made closer to the American people rather than putting everything in Washington, D.C.

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